Articles Tagged with: Benjamin Britten
Home / Blog Archives
17 December 2024

2024 in review… and looking forward to 2025

Karl Jenkins Requiem 22 June 2024
Karl Jenkins – Requiem
Benjamin Britten – A ceremony of Carols
and in 2025 British music across the ages

Dear friends and choir members

We said our thank you’s, congratulations and farewells at our Christmas dinner last week. I would like to extend these messages to our larger group which includes our loyal audience also. 

This year ‘s music was a challenge for the choir and we are proud of our performances of Karl Jenkins Requiem, with Bendigo Chorale and Benjamin Brittens A Ceremony of Carols at our Christmas concert. We thank our conductor Elena Varshavskaya, together with Berta Brozgul our accompanist  Denise Grocke our Concert Manager together with Elena plan our program. Denise sources our outside musicians and the quality of these I have no doubt add to the high standard of our concerts,along with the St Andrews Anglican church as our venue.

We look forward to returning next year. Our committee work hard through the year, alongside our choir members who are always willing to assist. I list the committee now in recognition.

Vice president: Stuart Allen
Secretary Rosemary Hamer
Treasurer: John Dunham
Concert Manager: Denise Grocke
IT & so much more: Angela Alomes

We are singing ‘British music’ from the Renaissance to present day in our first concert in 2025. You are welcome to come and try us out. Reading music is an advantage. Thank you to those people who may have sung with us in the past but are no longer able. We love catching up with you after concerts. We look forward to the return of choristers unable to sing in 2025. And thank you again to our audience.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Glen Eira City Choir next meets on Monday 3 February at 7.30pm for 7.45pm start at St Andrews Church, New Street, Brighton.

Yours,
Penny Paton
President

27 July 2024

2024 Mid-Winter Update

Wow! what a busy 5 months  Glen Eira City Choir has had, culminating in performing our Winter Concert –  Karl Jenkins Requiem at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Brighton on 22 June and then the following week at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral,  Bendigo. Rehearsals were held every week from February, with only a break for Easter Monday.  For this concert  Glen Eira City Choir again collaborated with Bendigo Chorale. We came together for a combined rehearsal with  Bendigo Chorale and the musicians early in June. (Listen to the choir in rehearsal here and  here)

In Requiem, a mass for the dead, Jenkins has inserted in between the traditional Latin texts movements with Japanese haiku ”death” poems,  and used both traditional and modern musical styles. We were thrilled to perform and share this work with such large audiences in Brighton and Bendigo. Thank you to all those attended!  You can listen to excerpts from the concert in Bendigo here – Dies Irae and the final movement In Paradisum

Monday following the concert we enjoyed  our usual post-concert dinner in a new venue. It was great being able to move freely around the room to catch up with people.

Many thanks to Lisa Robinson, our soloist for the Karl Jenkins Requiem, for offering us a  Voice Production & Vocal Exercise Class during our mid-winter break. Choristers and friends enjoyed learning about the anatomy of voice production  and putting into practice various techniques. It was good to catch up  again with choristers over tea/coffee afterwards.

During the break our conductor, Elena Varshavskaya, attended the Interkultur World Choir Games in Auckland NZ with Choral Studio Harmony, a children’s choir she also conducts. Congratulations to them on attaining Silver in the Young Children’s Choir section.

What’s next? Rehearsals for our Christmas Concert at St Andrew’s Brighton on Saturday 7 December commence on Monday 29 July.  We will be performing Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, along with well known Christmas Carols.

***CANCELLED due to unforseen circumstances***And finally our joint annual Silent Movie Night fundraiser with Holy Trinity Balaclava & Elwood is on Saturday 10 August 7.00pm. Enjoy watching Silent Movie Comedies, including an original Buster Keaton and first Disney cartoons, accompanied by David Johnston OAM on on the Fincham Pipe Organ of Holy Trinity (175 Chapel Street – Cnr Brighton Rd – St Kilda 3182). Admission $25 U15 free

Glen Eira City Choir 2022